Jim put his arm around his wife and held her close to him. They were both unsteady on their feet, but somehow they managed to remain standing.
“What do we do now?” said Aly.
“I don’t know.”
24
Rob was feeling a little better. He hadn’t really hit his head that hard. Instead, it had just been the shock of the accident that had somehow made his brain go all weird and fuzzy. He was annoyed and upset at himself. He felt like he’d been weak.
Jessica had tried to convince him that it wasn’t the case, but eventually she got annoyed of constantly trying to make him feel better, and they spent the next couple of hours walking together in silence back to the lake house.
The motorcycle had not been salvageable. So they’d just opted to leave it there along with the Subaru.
They’d taken what few items from the Subaru that might prove useful sometime in the future: some flares, a knife that had been in the glove box, two LED flashlights, and a couple of energy bars that Jim had apparently stashed by the spare tire years ago, forgetting about them. They were a few years past the expiration date, not that it mattered in times like these. They might end up tasting a little stale, but it’d still work for calories.
It was night now, the sun having set hours ago. There was a chill to the air. They walked along the roadside, and not a single car passed.
It was a dark night. The clouds were out, and they had to use their flashlights to see. But they didn’t keep them on all the time. Instead, they just flicked them on when they needed. This way, they’d preserve the batteries, and also make themselves less visible for whoever might be out there.
It was strange, passing houses that were completely dark. They should have been used to it by now, but they weren’t. Or at least Rob wasn’t. Jessica wasn’t talking, after all.
Jessica was good with directions, and she led them.
Finally, after what seemed like an entire day of walking, but had really just been several hours, they were getting close to the lake.
It felt good to almost be back. Rob’s legs were aching just from the walk alone. He couldn’t remember a time that he’d walked this much, let alone on so few calories.
Before the EMP, he’d been content to lounge on the couch, throwing back a couple beers, watching whatever happened to be on. He’d really liked watching nature shows, the ones where they show animals savagely devouring each other. Back then, the natural world had been something to marvel at, not something to participate in.
Now Rob and his friends were just like those animals. They were going to eat or be eaten. Not literally, of course. Well, so long as things didn’t get really bad. Not that Rob would ever do that. The idea repulsed him. But he wouldn’t put it past others. People were sick and messed up, no matter who they were or where they came from. Rob had known that for a long time. At every job he’d ever managed to hold onto for a couple weeks, he’d inevitably find that some normal-seeming coworker was, in fact, nothing more than a psychopath in disguise. Or, at the very least, someone with very serious problems.
And now all those people weren’t stuck at work. They weren’t stuck trying to make a living, trying to gather up enough currency to be able to pay rent and afford food and entertainment. No, now they were out in the wild, where their hard-earned money was no good, and they’d do whatever they could do to survive. Just like everyone else.
It was enough to give Rob shivers down his back, the kind that he used to get when he’d watched scary movies.
“Hey,” whispered Jessica, nudging him. “You see that up there?”
“Huh? Why are you whispering?” said Rob, speaking much too loudly.
“In case someone’s here. Keep it quiet, would you?”
Up ahead, there was something. It was something red, glowing.
“What’s that?”
“Fire?”
“Fire? But shouldn’t the lake house be right there?”
“Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe we got lost.”
“Let’s hope so, because it’s looking more and more like fire.”
The closer they got, the more it became apparent that it was fire. Or, more accurately, the end of a large fire. The flames weren’t intense, but those kinds of low, glowing flames you get when a fire had already consumed most of the material available.
“You think that’s the lake house?”
“Yeah. Look around you. That’s definitely the lake house. Don’t you recognize the trees? The driveway?”
“It’s dark. How can you see anything?”
“I guess you just have worse eyesight.”
“There’s no need to snap at me.”
“I’m not snapping.”
Rob shrugged it off. They were tired, and people got snippy when they were tired. Not to mention hungry.
He was more concerned about what it meant that the lake house had apparently burned to the ground.
They got closer now, close enough to feel some of the heat coming off the fire.
It was definitely the lake house they were looking at. Or its remains. The house had been completely consumed by fire, and the remains of the walls and ceiling had collapsed inwards. What was left was just a smoldering pile of wood, with flames lapping at the edges.
The smell was horrible, as if something unnatural had been burned, almost like plastic, but not quite.
“This isn’t good,” said Rob.
“Understatement of the year.”
“Do you think they’re…”
“Dead? Why not just come out and say it?”
Rob didn’t answer. Instead, he moved closer to the burning house, using his elbow to partially cover his face, trying to protect himself a little from the smoke.
Jessica was at his side.
“If there’s anyone in there, there’s no saving them.”
“What do we do?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“Why? Do you?”
Not knowing what to do, not knowing what had happened to the others, and knowing that there was no way they could salvage anything useful from the house, they retreated back to a clump of trees.
They huddled up, getting close to the trunk. They sat back-to-back, but even so, they were shivering in the cool air. Rob could feel Jessica’s back as she shivered, and it unnerved him. It was hard to viscerally feel that she was cold, and it was hard to know that Jessica, who always seemed to have everything together, who always seemed to know what to do, was at just as much of a loss as he was.
Sitting there in the dark, Rob felt hopeless. The idea was to keep an eye out. If the others had lived, they’d hopefully return to the house hoping to meet up with Rob and Jessica.
“You think they died?” came Jessica’s voice in the darkness. It sounded hollow and scared.
“No,” said Rob. “Come on. There’s no way. We don’t know what caused the fire, but whatever it was, they would have had time to leave the house, right? It’s not exactly big. It’s definitely no mansion.”
“Yeah,” said Jessica. “But if that was the case, wouldn’t they have just put out the fire?”
“Uh, I guess. Maybe they couldn’t, though?”
“Come on. If it was a candle or something, they could put it out. Hit it with a rug, pour some water on it, whatever it takes.”
“Then what do you think happened?”
“Some kind of fight.”
“A fight?”
“You know, a home invasion. Something like that. They swoop in, kill everyone, and burn the house down.”
The thought gave Rob those chills again. Chills of fear. After all, it was a real possibility.
He might never see Jim or Aly again.
The two of them fell into silence, and, gradually, the night wore on. The hours passed, and nothing happened. No one showed up. There were no noises, other than the noises of animals. No cars drove by, and no lights shone.